[Premium-Rx] Cellular coverage test receivers

[Peter Ratuschni]

Hallo Spencer ;-)
sorry, I got it wrong; I did not know these little cellular boxes... interesting!
Another thought: With the shutdown of analogue TV a lot of equipment could be expected to flood the surplus market. At the moment I am investigating a R&S TV measurement receiver. The main problem seems to be the lack of any useable TV IF filters, as these are very wide and unsymmetric by design. Maybe a further conversion from 38.9 MHz to 21.4 MHz is the way to go.
- Peter


Re: Aw: [Premium-Rx] Cellular coverage test receivers

Peter,
Thanks for your feedback. I have and HP8920B so am pretty familiar with these. What I a curious about are the small cellular coverage test receivers that get used with a laptop by cellular coverage engineers. Go search on eBay for Seagull test receiver and you will see an example. Little blue boxes. There is a vendor that makes this stuff called Digital Receiver Technology or DRT. They also make productS for three letter agencies. S

Aw: [Premium-Rx] Cellular coverage test receivers

Hi Spencer,
one of the biggest ( but probably not best ) is the HP 8922X. The base unit covers 10 - 1015 MHz and the expansion 83220 (for option 10 units ) is for DCS&PCS ( roughly 1800-1990 MHz ).
The SA (option) has a max span of 10 MHz ( min is 5 KHz).
It has FM and pulse demodulation. I use the latter for receiving the air-band (AM). Showing the FM radio spectrum is also nice. Sound can be reproduced with the small internal speaker; of course better with an external amp + speaker.
Filters seem to be very limited, you can select 30 or 100 KHz video BW. I doubt if the SA span / resolution BW affects bandwidth of the IF for demodulation. Sensivity / noise ground of my unit is -112 dBm at the AUX input.
I can recommend these boatanchors only if someone wants to use also other functions as the CW generator, the digital LF scope, ...
Ergonomical pros are the named memory function and the parameter input / tuning - but you have to jump to the right entry tab before. Because of tons of functions you can sometimes search a while...
There are a lot if variants out there, some are missing FM demod. So check carefully what is offered. And remember: the base unit weights 30 Kg. Together with the expansion the 8922X takes 7 units in the rack.
b.r.
Peter